Let’s see.. I guess my upbringing could be considered more “hippie” religiously or at least vague. My grandmother sort of believed that ancient aliens *might* have helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids and had an open mind about Atlantis being an ancient technological civilization. We’d watch science shows together when I was little and she got me interested in Doctor Who, a show I enjoy to this day.

My mother believed that health food was good for kids, so she made her own yogurt and we had our own garden and weren’t allowed to drink soda except on special occasions.

Yet, my grandmother had a job working around engineers and my mother had a government job working around law enforcement and courts, so we didn’t *look* eclectic as a family.

I went to the local Methodist (Christian) church by default because it wasn’t Catholic. [Catholic is considered to be very strict and we were taught they were a little ‘weird’].

I explored different liberal Christian-based religions for a while as a teenager and early 20s. I tried extreme Christianity (Eastern Orthodox) for a few years in my mid-late 20s. After that, I was back to my default, which was always Science.

But I never left science as my main interest. The religious stuff was mostly fun for me, exploring different ideas and such. But I took it about as seriously as my grandmother’s interest in ancient aliens : fun ideas to think about but not to be taken *too* seriously.